Debuff limit will be changed to 16 in patch 1.7

[kandrathe]

We've never seen a deep breath occur unless the damage dropped off (usually about half the raid is dead due to whelps which hasn't occured since out second attempt).  We have had people clumped in front of her, under her, and all over trying to keep the damage up.  On our last 3 attempts, she has not loosed a single deep breath.  If it was an issue with clumping, we should have seen DBs in the last three runs against her and we haven't (cause we have people chasing her all around the cave keeping damage up with a couple dedicated groups taking on the whelps, one on each side of the cave).  And the last time she DBed on us, she had been in Phase 2 for close to 10 minutes.  From everything we've seen and others have observed as well, DBs happen on a timer and not due to "clumping".
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I think you both might be right. I think there are triggers where the AI determines a DB is called for. I think we naturally tend to spread out, and I'm pretty keen to stay out from under her or from in front of her. Here's another opinion from another raiding guild;

The Deep Breath attack is a hot topic of discussion and seems to have changed in a recent patch. Some people will claim that positioning has nothing to do with it, or that debuffs and DPS is all that matters. I disagree and it's been my experience that deep breaths only occur when one of two mistakes are being made: 10+ people are clustered in one area, or DPS sucks and she is still in the air after about 4-5 minutes. We also started getting more deep breaths when we slacked on debuffs, so I always stress to keep 6+ debuffs on her at all times during this phase. The exact workings of deep breath will probably remain a mystery; different people will have different experiences and make different observations. But the core strategy to avoid it remains the same: spread out and get her on the ground as soon as possible.